


Lonely Spirits

by innertimetraveldetective



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Basically, Depression, F/M, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Hospitalisation, Post-Bahrain (Agents of SHIELD), Post-Episode: s02e17 Melinda, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, just sad, primarily hurt tho, technically an AU cos andrew isn't there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:14:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27447712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/innertimetraveldetective/pseuds/innertimetraveldetective
Summary: "I hate it so much, this pain, this constant ache in my chest, because I know, that no matter how many apologies I make, how much I beg for forgiveness, ‘sorry’ is never going to make up for what I did."Angsty post-Bahrain Philinda
Relationships: Phil Coulson & Melinda May, Phil Coulson/Melinda May
Comments: 9
Kudos: 18





	Lonely Spirits

**Author's Note:**

> full disclaimer, i haven't slept in a hot second, and i swear i tried to edit this i'm just not thinking very coherently 😂
> 
> very sorry if it makes no sense.

May became a ghost after Bahrain. That’s how Phil saw it anyway. The old Melinda wasn’t gone completely, her spirit still wandered the world aimlessly, but she was gone. His friend, his colleague, she was gone. She’d been consumed by guilt, by whatever unspeakable horrors she’d seen in there. He’d visited her everyday during her sick leave. He couldn’t bear the thought of her being alone, of her spirit wandering alone; he brought her food, made sure she ate it. He’d sit with her, the silence long and painful, the dead look behind her eyes cutting him down, tearing him apart.

It was almost a relief when the silence broke, that was until it was replaced by drunken slurs, with bleary eyes, hungover puking. He’d hold her hair back in the dark bathroom, sitting with her on the bathroom floor as she cried between the sickness, gasping for breath, desperately treading water in the sea of her mind she was drowning in. She’d yell at him sometimes, the stench of alcohol stale in the air, her once calm speech replaced by screams, by curses, by fire. She’d tell him to fuck off, to leave her alone, that she didn’t need him, that she wasn’t a toddler, that she could take care of herself. He’d stay quiet, polite, as she shouted herself raw, as she broke down before him, being replaced by a stranger. He got a front row ticket to the death of Melinda May, he got to witness the deterioration of her, the birth of The Cavalry. 

He eventually just moved in with her. Not because she wanted him there, but because he didn’t trust what would happen to her if she was alone. He’d sleep on the couch, night in night out. He was there to stop her going for the whiskey, he was there to hold her hair back when she was sick anyway. He was there after every nightmare, for every rush to hospital after it had gotten too much. He watched, utterly helpless as she destroyed herself, ferociously forging her own path of self destruction. He could never understand, never be able to relate to what she’d been through. He knew she couldn’t share this experience with anyone, that her isolation was painfully justified because nobody could ever understand. He knew, as he watched her fade away, that she would never be back. He grieved for her, he grieved as he watched her grieve, and he grieved as he lost her. 

He couldn’t tell you a single lowest point. He could say directly afterwards, as her sobs shook his chest, as the Bahraini sun bore down on them, the heat penetrating her sorrow. He could say the day she resigned from the field, the day Maria’s transfer acceptance arrived. He could say the day she truly faded, the day she became unreachable, the weeks that followed, blank stares and sleepless nights. He could say the bloody glass on the floor, the smashed whiskey bottles, the numbed agony behind her eyes, replaced by drunken rage, acidic bile that she coughed up like fire, spitting from her throat. He could say the fake normality, the false airs she put up, desperate to convince him, to convince herself that she was just fine, the surrender behind her eyes painfully clear. She’d been fighting a battle with her guilt, and finally she’d given in, collapsing in on herself. The numbed fury had been replaced by dull abandon, eerily similar to the one that had haunted her the weeks directly after, although this time she had come to terms with it; this time she couldn’t deny it anymore.

He stayed with her for years of this, years of her silence, of her pain that she refused to acknowledge hanging over their apartment. He stayed, waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for the dam to break, for the shattered woman to finally start building herself back up again. It took 7 years of silence, 7 years of her suffering silently, refusing his help, before finally, on the seventh anniversary of Bahrain, something snapped inside her, the elastic band that had been so tightly holding her together finally breaking.

“I can’t deal with this anymore, Phil.” she said quietly as he entered her room to find her sitting quietly on her bed, a single tear trickling down her cheek.

“I hate it so much, this pain, this constant ache in my chest, because I know, that no matter how many apologies I make, how much I beg for forgiveness, ‘sorry’ is never going to make up for what I did.” She all but screamed, her head killing her, 7 years of repressed emotions bursting out of her all at once. He sat next to her, taking her hand as she broke down, rubbing her back as the tidal wave hit her, as the war started once again. That was the day he saw a flicker of the Melinda he’d once known, the day that, for just a moment, The Cavalry lifted her veil, finally exposing the broken woman underneath, bare of her walls of defences she’d set up. He sat with her that whole night. She talked more than he’d heard her in the last year. She finally let herself breathe, she finally surfaced from the dim world she’d been living in, taking a break to finally feel, to experience her own emotions, every raw, gritty one of them. That night her lonely spirit, her isolated soul joined him, revelled in his warmth, in her escape from the icy bitterness she’d lived in for almost a decade.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Comments definitely encouraged, I'd love to know what you thought


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